Nigeria witnessed its 7th Presidential and National Assembly elections since 1999 on February 25, 2023. Among the main candidates were Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressive Congress, Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party, and Peter Obi of the Labour Party.

Tinubu, with a record total of 8,794,726 votes, was able to gain the upper hand over Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), who polled 6,984,520 votes, while Mr Peter Obi of the Labour Party scored 6,101,533 votes.

Despite justifiable worries expressed about alleged irregularities in the 2023 presidential election, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) last Wednesday declared Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) the victor of the February 25 election.

There has, however, been a list of contentions regarding the outcome of the election, and the validity of Tinubu’s claim to the presidential office.

While Tinubu and Atiku won 12 states each, Obi won 11 states and the FCT, while Kwankwaso defeated the three only in Kano State.
Of the three leading presidential candidates, only Obi won the FCT, which is a very strong constitutional requirement to become the President of Nigeria.

In calling into question INEC’s declaration of the winner, Peter Obi and the Labour Party legally filed a petition on March 21, 2023.

Obi, the 1st petitioner, and LP, the 2nd petitioner, had sued the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Bola Asiwaju Tinubu, Kashim Shettima, and the All Progressive Congress as the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th respondents, respectively.

The grounds of their petition were that Tinubu was not qualified to contest the election, that the election of Tinubu was invalid due to corrupt practices or non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022, and that Tinubu was not duly elected by the majority of the lawful votes cast at the presidential election.
Obi and the Labour Party also argued that the nomination of Shetima as vice president was done in violation of the law and, as such, should be disqualified.

Atiku Abubakar, PDP’s presidential candidate, joined the list of petitioners as contention over Tinubu’s victory has been dragged to the Supreme Court, with his petition, dated /PEPC/05/2023. Although the specifics of Atiku’s petition were not immediately available, he and his party criticised the entire process that led to Tinubu’s victory as the newly elected president.

Atiku’s petition was filed 21 days after INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, declared Tinubu the winner of the presidential election, citing his party’s majority of votes cast.

In response to Peter Obi’s petition, the APC prayed the court to dismiss the suit on the premise that Peter Obi lacked the “locus standi” to petition INEC and the APC because he was not a member of the Labour Party for at least 30 days to the party’s presidential primary to be validly sponsored by the party.

Their response detailed the fact that Peter Obi, the 1st petitioner, was a member of the PDP until May 24, 2022, having undergone screening as a presidential aspirant of the PDP in April 2022. The 1st petitioner resigned from his membership of the PDP on May 24 and joined the LP (2nd petitioner) on May 27, 2022.

The Labour Party conducted its presidential primary on the 30th of May, 2022, producing Peter Obi as its candidate, which breached Section 77(3) of the Electoral Act for him to contest the primary election of the Labour Party
So, among other things, the party contended that the tribunal lacked the necessary jurisdiction to hear the pre-election objections included in the petition as written.
The APC urged the tribunal to dismiss the petition with heavy costs since it lacked merit and was based on frivolity.

A recent disclosure has also shown that the president-elect has dual citizenship.
This was brought to light on Saturday night, shortly before midnight, when independent journalist David Hundeyin uploaded images of a Guinean diplomatic passport bearing the name “Bola Ahmed Tinubu” on his Twitter account. The passport also displayed Mr Tinubu’s photo and indicated it was issued in October 2015, expiring five years later in October 2020.

This puts Tinubu at risk of attracting perjury charges, an offense of willfully telling an untruth or making a misrepresentation under oath.

Tinubu, according to Hundeyin, declared in his Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) EC9 declaration that he had no other citizenship. His findings, however, show that the former Lagos governor holds Guinean citizenship, as evidenced by his Guinean passport, which plainly stated that he was born in Nigeria, hinting that he got Guinean citizenship.

Keep in mind that the same independent journalist, David Hundeyin revisited Tinubu’s narcotics-linked forfeiture of $460, 000 in two of his bank accounts in 1993, resulting from an Illinois court judgment.

He made this information widely known three months before the 2023 elections campaign kicked off with a story titled Bola Ahmed Tinubu: From Drug Lord to Presidential Candidate, which was published in his newsletter West Africa Weekly. The court document became widely accessible after Hundeyin uploaded it to Scribd. It has also been one of the strongholds of Peter Obi’s current petitions being dragged out in court.

According to a report from BusinessDay, the drug case involving Tinubu has also generated over 10 million engagements in the form of likes, retweets, quotes, views, and shares across various social media platforms.

So far, the controversy concerning dual citizenship has been met with unusual silence from Tinubu’s camp.

Atiku’s spokesman, Daniel Bwala, reacting to the issue, questioned why Tinubu would allegedly have dual citizenship and run for president.
He said in a tweet:
If you are running for the office of the president, but you have acquired a passport of another country, meaning you have dual citizenship; and in your INEC form you ticked No for having another passport other than a Nigerian passport, what is the implication? Hmmm.

Someone was trying to give an excuse for dual citizenship and said, “but the passport has expired.” Funny. Does the expiration of your passport take away your citizenship status?

In the face of these numerous surfacing contentions, the question to ask is, will Bola Ahmed Tinubu be sufficiently armed by the constitutional provisions of the country to retain his triumph in the elections and eventually be sworn in as Nigeria’s president?